


a twisted past, a broken future

by hiroshimalovers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Asexual Character, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 00:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3337718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiroshimalovers/pseuds/hiroshimalovers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world that seems determined to make things difficult, quiet people find each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	a twisted past, a broken future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [C-chan (1001paperboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/gifts).



> I apologize for the lack of fluff, and the short length, as well as the rushed feel of the end.

There are many days, countless days, where Grantaire can’t remember the date or the name of the last book or the brand of cigarettes he smokes. He is running from something, or to something, and he is alone. It is cold. He is cold.

The wind is blowing strong, and Grantaire buckles down. He pulls himself into his coat, and puts his head down, and bustles on in the headstrong way of those who know life but still try and fight. The cold pervades his bones, and he thinks of nights sitting in an unfamiliar place. There is ice on the ground, and grey piles of snow everywhere, and his hands are cold and dry, and there are paint spots on his pants, and if he had friends, he’d be embarrassed. He almost is when he scans the crowd, a person with delicate cheekbones, a library bag full of books, a woman propped up against a building. They are all hopeless, and so is he.

(he thinks of being a child, and a world he must have invented where there was a man in red who stood tall, and a pale girl pulling along a man with too many freckles, and he was always always drinking, and he pretends that he made it all up. he must have)

His breath billows out in front of him, like a dragon, and he thinks of the bottle of whisky he drank last night, this morning, last week, and time blends into itself. He is a dragon, he is a dragon who is dying slowly but surely of a world he must have made up, he can’t believe in.

He is the dregs of paint in the tube, he is the dirty water poured down the drain. (he is not the dragon)

\--

One day, there is a man with blonde hair who stands up, and is shot down. It happens, once, twice, countless times yet he does not give up. Teachers smash him down - tell him his ideas are idealistic and he will know better when he grows up. He wants to tell them that he’s been grown up since he realized that his money, his father’s money is built on the labor of Filipino (or Indonesian, Chinese, Indian) children, slave labor in it’s rawest form.

Enjolras is the kind of man that no one wants until they need him, want something done. He scares them, he knows, and the information doesn’t hurt him like it once would (like it did freshman year of debate, and the teams muttering, he’s intense, you mean mean?, yes but I didn’t mean to be cruel).

He is privileged, and he knows, but it is the type of thing he tries to unlearn, because sometimes he is hit with the type of internalized racism, or homophobia and he hates it. It’s how he grew up though, and now he can’t help but look at that kid begging and think of a past that he never really had. It must have been a book.

(the kids on the street are all blonde and nimble and he has a dream of one passing letters around a room, dark eyes in every corner. it is the past. he knows it must be)

He stays inside with the timeless books and dreams of a world that is different, where everyone has the opportunities he does, and one where he doesn’t feel so awkward with bureaucrats, with teenagers, with boys and girls and dogs.

It doesn’t come.

\--

Courfeyrac is the type of kid that doesn’t pay much attention the what the world seems to want from him, and he turns inward on himself, thoughts on love and help and something that’s got to mean something. He says he’s just out for fun, but he wants to know the secrets of the universe, the secrets of why there are words and pictures in his head that he doesn’t remember making.

Once, he is walking on a street and he glances at a boy with brightly colored spots across his skin, freckles glowing red in the evening light. It is a simple moment, and he forgets, minutes seconds but then and there, it is something. It is memory.

(he imagines cosmos and gunshots, and a man waving a flag, standing on a table, a woman smiling in the corner, and bottles, glasses around. there is passion in the room, and he feels warm with the hope that can’t possibly have existed)

He spends his time with a grin stretched across his features even if he doesn’t quite feel it, and molds his body into something he loves. There are people, everywhere, always and he learns to like some of them, and how to act for others and the nagging ideas in his mind curl into smoke at midnight and drinks at two am, and he knows he must of slurred unhappiness to someone, but they stay silent and so does he.

There are dreams and there are wishes and his bloodstream runs with them both, in the red that makes him think of revolution. 

He tries not to look at it. 

\--

In a world full of men and false accusations and broken hopes, Eponine becomes herself in detention rooms and math classes, physics courses that she will miss when the money flows from her hand into her brothers but she can’t regret it. He is something, to her, and he will always be. She pulls herself up and twists the earrings out of her ears, pushes her sleeves down and places on a smile for morning waitressing, textbooks under the counter in the back.

She is not the type of girl to become something, she is sad and old and not worth it, and those words are embedded into her soul like nothing else, heard over centuries (because that’s what these thoughts must be, ancient). Aristotle and Rousseau bring anger, but she longs to become Wollstonecraft, angry and destructive but safe, bearing beauty wrapped in something a little bit twisted.

Her brother smiles, and she thinks maybe she’s achieved one of those things.

(sometimes she can’t help but imagine the words not worth it in many voices all blending into one, from red hair and alcohol to dark and everything is something, except for her. everything is something, atoms, electrons, but the past is everything but the future, and that is all her daydreams have taught her)

The world turns to dust in her dreams and it is quiet and loud as she gives a presentation to a class and the only comment is drop the act. She crushes it and her hands are cold, stained with nicotine. 

She will not grow much further

\--

There are many more stories of many more people, and so few will be told.

(one dies first, a mere child and she cries, she cries so hard)

(another is always looking for something in bright colors and the kind of joy you get from tablets on your tongue and they go up in flames, flowers left in the ashes. they blow away in the wind)

(yet one more runs with a man and a woman in a wish but they get lost in a world of love and they die one by one)

The cold permeates us all, in the way that we all find each other someday. 

(a girl dreams of joan of arc and loses herself to a world where her father was once large, and now is small, and she is caught up in one shy boy and a heart that beats too fast)

(one is caught up in bad luck and bad hair)

A world begins to blow away, with gunshot wounds and life fading out.

(it was 1832)

\--

It is twenty-fifteen.

\--

One day, it is a reading session at a library, where a person with flowers in their hair is spilling words out of picture books into children’s ears and they begin to grow with the seeds of literature, the whispers of love. A tall man, glasses stands behind a stack of books, holding a copy of I Am Malala, and Middlesex. He is dark and beautiful and he stands and listens.

The person reading finishes the first story and a little boy asks, “are you a boy or a girl?” and they visibly deflate in the way that only someone has been asked too many times can.

“Neither,” they sigh, “I’m simply Jehan.” The boy nods, and a woman sitting near the back rises, steering her child away, muttering something about new age hypocrites and the way transvestites were ruining the world. Jehan’s shoulders slump further and they pick up the next book, and they look so tired. The man with the glasses, with the books, steps out and follows the woman.

“Ma’am,” he says, “ma’am, I’m Combeferre, and could I talk to you for a moment?” Jehan glances up, surprised, but Combeferre walks, unwavering. The lady nods, and Combeferre continues, “I couldn’t help but notice what you muttered about the person reading, moments ago.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, I simply must go,” she says, a little flustered, and Combeferre takes another step forward.  
“Yes, it does,” he begins, “I don’t want to get into too much, but please don’t treat people like they are nothing if they don’t quite conform to what you want them to be.” Pausing for a moment, he continues, “I’m sorry for bothering you, but this ‘liberal nonsense’ is what gained you the right to vote. It’s generally a step in the right direction. Sorry again, but I hope, I hope that you know that people are far more than your thoughts on them.” He sighs and steps away, free hand fidgeting almost violently. 

She begins to move away, “That’s unneeded, I simply need to go. Goodbye,” and she disapears through the rotating doors. 

Jehan turns back to the book, and Combeferre turns back to his books, picking up a story on the lost king of france, and another on the evolution of moths. Later, when the children begin to disperse and Combeferre is finally, finally checking out, Jehan appears.

‘You didn’t have to do that,” they say.

“I know,” says Combeferre, “but it always hurts when you watch people hurt. I’m trying, I’m trying to help, I think. In a world that doesn’t accept too many people, I want to try and fix that.” The I want to try and fix me, I want to be accepted, goes unsaid, and Jehan nods.

They stick out their hand - a thank you in a way, and a real introduction, “I’m Jehan, I’m agender and bisexual, and I use they/them/their.” They grin, in a way that makes everything seem okay.

“I’m Combeferre,” says Combeferre, “I’m a cisgendered male, asexual, and I use he/him/his.” The two smile dopily at each other before exchanging phone numbers. 

In a world that seems determined to make things difficult, queer people find each other.

It will get better.

\--

In a speech almost a year later, Enjolras uses bits and pieces of this story in a speech for justice but he doesn’t meet them until much later.

“The world is a cold place, and while I knew this from exploitation, as mentioned earlier, it didn’t hit me til I met a man shivering in the hot sun. Grantaire, get up here,” Enjolras transitions, as Grantaire climbs onto the makeshift stage. 

“I know we’re all for queer rights,” Grantaire begins, and a cheer goes up, “but right now, I want to talk about the general thing that encompasses everything we’re fighting for. Equality. Now, I’m not the best speaker, so bear with me. I met Enjolras, what, eight months ago, and I was probably drunk off my ass.” Enjolras rolls his eyes, “I was drunk, and I was unhappy and the most surprising thing to this rich-as-fuck activist - I was poor. I didn’t have any conviction to get out of it - actually I still don’t. I have a job, I have a roof, and I actually bought juice last week. That shit’s expensive!”

“Anyway, back to the point, equality. I was poor, cis, and a little bit gay. Enjolras here had money out of his ass - I swear, he has Armani jeans or whatever. Armani, they’re like really good I think. They’re in the New York Times. Equally important, he was hella queer.”

Here, Enjolras interjects, “I am transgender, female to male.” The crowd erupts in confusion.

“Well, we were sort of on the same foot for inequality. He was trans, and I was poor and in short, our lives sucked. How the hell did we meet? It was actually a group for people ‘dealing with strong emotions’. My therapist forced me to go - like can you see me with a shrink? Me either - she was state mandated, and I was drunk . So anyhow, we’re sitting in these plastic chairs - you know the crappy kind that you’re a little wary about them collapsing. The group leader, he’s going around and asking us to talk about we’re here and Enjolras just stands up and says so bluntly, I’m trans and I have anger issues and everyone just starts laughing. Now, I’ve been told this is safe place, and while I didn’t believe it, I thought it would be passive aggressive and veiled. Not this, so Enjolras asks ‘what,’ and this woman, she says ‘thats bullshit,’ and I have thoughts, you know, that people are inherently terrible and this is just reinforcing it. I just get up and walk out, and Enjolras is standing there, and I leave, say over my shoulder, ‘sorry, we’ve got a previous engagement.’ and that’s that.”

“You make me sound so unassertive. Come on,” complains Enjolras in an almost playful way. Almost.

“We end up in the parking lot, and he’s just like, ‘why the fuck do you care,” so I shrug and say, ‘my therapist says i’ve got to try to be a good person,’ and he laughs and I laugh, and then he gets in his nice as car, and I start to walk. He, somewhat logically asks where mine is, and I didn't have one. And this, somehow, was the most surprising thing to him. That I didn't have a car. Honestly, I think this shows a lot of things. People react badly to what they don't know. To the women, it was queerness, to enjolras, it was inequality. We need to change the world, like enjolras has changed his ways. We need enjolras to change the world because he knows. "

People react badly to things they don't know. 

\--

One day, months or years into the future, there is a group sitting around a table. There are a few beers, and some chips, and it is the kind of camaraderie that only comes with true familiarity. 

(Eponine has her hand curled around a beer and the other wrapped around Grantaire’s, in the way that they are friends in a screwed up way, made out of empty wishes and open-eyed nights, and maybe they don’t talk about boys and girls and parents, but they have the kind of friendship of dreams and nightmares alike)

(Courfeyrac is pressed shoulder to shoulder with Combeferre, loud and quiet next to each other, and bright eyes smiling up at the corners)

(Enjolras lets Jehan braid flowers into his hair - and that, for him, is really as true of love as it gets)

(Bahoreal, Feuilly, Musichetta, Joly, all curl themselves together surrounded by their own deafening laughter, by dreams achieved together, about the world they overcame with grins and determination, and everything anyone wants to have)

Cosette looks up, out over the table. “I love you,” she says, “you all.” Some return the sentiment, and some just nod but the atmosphere is warm. 

 

\--

People meet and people change, and these aren't so terrible in a world that almost exists but not quite. 

There are thousands of ways the Amis could have come together. This is but snippets of one.


End file.
